Mobile phones and sex

Now that I've got your attention, take a look at the graphic I recently came across while doing some research on a new mobile phone.

I can't vouch for the robustness of the data, nor where the sample came from, but let's just assume for now that the data is legitimate. If you were in the business of selling mobile phones, what would you do with it?

Perhaps you would approach Apple with a campaign about how iPhones can get you laid. Or Android operators with a get married earlier message. Or even promise Blackberry owners that the office store cupboard is there for a reason.

All might make, at a push, semi-interesting start points for communication. All are, however, founded on a fundamental misreading of research data, which to this day research companies who should know better seem keen to perpetuate. That correlation implies causality - the so called Rosser Reeves fallacy.

Each of the three types of phone above are bought by people with differing demographics and attitudes.The phones they choose is just as much a reflection of who they are as their number of sexual partners. One is not however a driver of the other.

A straw poll of my colleagues here would suggest that none are swayed to jump in to the sack with someone new on the strength of their mobile phone. But that same straw poll has at least thrown up one observation, that this might be the most inspiring single piece of research they'll come across all year.

Behavioral Economics in the workplace

Today we had some very important clients in the building, and in the time honoured way we were encouraged to be in early to create the impression of a busy, thriving agency (which is just what we are, but it's possibly to tell at 9am on a Tuesday). So yesterday the note went round asking what time we thought we would all be able get in for the following morning. The options were as follows:

(a) Usual time (ie before 9.30am)
(b) Early (before 8.45am)
(c) Early with FREE breakfast thrown in
(d) On holiday / out

Guess what the most popular option was? Option (c) certainly looks like a whole lot better than option (b), and probably better than option (a) too once other factors are taken into account. I doubt this would have happened were it not for the lesser value option (b) being on the menu. So not only did we have the agency humming by 9am, it was full of genuinely happy, contented people. Let's hope it runs off on the client!

You can read more more about this other behavioral economic theories at the excellent Dan Ariely's blog. Or you could simply read Predictably Irrational. Business books are often high on theory and low on practicality, but when you can see things brought to life by your own workforce,you know you must be on to something. I'm off for breakfast.

Why no creative progress is usually better than some

A fascinating piece of post rationalisation from my colleagues Clare Rossi and Dennis Lewis. More than half way through a tense and important creative development process the sum total of our efforts was close to zero. This launched an already nervous client into wave upon wave of panic until Dennis drew him the chart you see here.

He argued that much though we might like it to be so, creative development is not a linear process. Instead, getting to a big idea involves rumbling along the bottom trying lots of different things until gold is finally struck. In doing so Dennis argued that by having nothing of any note to show at the intermediate review was therefore a good thing and that we were completely on target for greatness (the asterisk in the above chart).

Conversely, if we had a few half baked ideas we would almost certainly end up with work that was quite possibly good, but not good enough.

I've found myself using this argument a lot ever since.

The Power of No

Amidst the endless repeats and Xmas specials on TV over the holidays I managed to cram in 2 hours watching Crash by Paul Haggis. I hadn't seen it since it first came out in 2004 and as well as being enjoyable in its own right it was strangely prescient of my first week back in the office.

Three or four storms in a teacup have now developed into major hurricanes, the origins of which go back weeks and months into 2009. It seems that all too often our agency took the path of least resistance when digging our heels in would have saved much of this new year heartache. Just like in the movie (sort of), the origins of crashes are multifarious and complex. They usually occur a long time before the event.

If 'yes' is the consumer response we spend our time and effort trying to generate, I have a new year resolution of saying "no" more often to help get it, even if I know it'll put a few noses out of joint in the short term. I know we're all up against it and the last thing we want to do is upset those we depend on, even in the short term, but by simply saying yes all the time we're doing them all a disservice. And no one wins from that, least of all us.

The biggest challenge for food & drink advertising in the new decade

Google the words “food and drink advertising” and you’ll be left in little doubt as to the most important topic of 2009, that of increased industry regulation particularly in the HFSS and children’s categories. The general gist of the coverage is that the authorities are having to step in to protect unscrupulous marketers from exploiting the country’s most vulnerable individuals.

Yet while a few companies try and shift the odd case here and there by sailing close to the regulatory wind, the enlightened have already recognized that consumer sentiment was leading regulation in the first place, and reacted accordingly.

These brands, both big and small, understand that consumer perceptions are no longer framed by one way conversations. In short, you can make all the fantastic advertising you want but if it’s dissonant with the other aspects of a brand’s behavior, such as corporate provenance or sourcing of ingredients, then consumers will at best ignore you and at worst attack you.

Many ad industry experts cite share of voice as one of the key determinants of success. And while it clearly has a role to play, the important thing to recognize is that it is only a means to an end. In 2010, the most important channel is people. Advertising can help encourage conversation but it’s only one element. A more wise move is to see it in context alongside the other elements of the brand and frame it accordingly. 

Has OTC advertising moved on from Mad Men?

A prominent pre-testing company recently presented “breakthrough” findings on what makes effective OTC advertising.

Their advice was to avoid “visual vampires”, that problem/solution is always best, having a single minded relevant idea is vital, believability is key, mention the brand name within the first five seconds of the ad and that creativity is not a critical ingredient to effectiveness.

Sound familiar.  They ought to.  These insights are the very same ones you would have found 50 years ago in the golden age of the Mad Men.  Amazing how little the accepted OTC advertising formula has changed.

Like it or not, the way in which people view and interact with brands has changed, and that pace of change is increasing. Winning brands and categories constantly find new ways to fuse cultural and category conventions that help define the markets in which people live and think in the present day. I can't help think that most OTC advertising would struggle to qualify in this regard.

When integration goes bad

There are numerous articles, posts and even books written on the subject of integration in communications. When to do it, how to do it and where to do it. And there are many practitioners in advertising who know a lot more than me about it.

Most authors argue that effective communications should either look the same (the so called matching luggage approach) or say the same thing in manners appropriate to their channel.

I can find few commentators who argue vehemently against integration. Crispin Porter + Bogusky occasionally stray close to this point, but even their fantastic work for Burger King amongst others uses consistent devices more often than not (step forward The King).

While doing some work with an anti-smoking charity recently I came across a particularly compelling case against any form of integration. The argument goes something like this. When it comes to smoking, smokers know it's bad for them. But they still don't like being reminded of the fact. Rather than give up, they look for ways to edit themselves out of the communication. They don't look like the people in the ads. They haven't got any kids or always smoke outside. That way they can convince themselves that the communication isn't referring to them and they therefore don't need to make themselves feel bad yet again.

Against this backdrop, it would be crazy to put all your eggs in one beautifully integrated basket that you know your audience are going to try and jump straight out of. A more succesful approach would be to close down as many 'escape routes' as possible so that smokers are left with nowhere to turn other than to confront their own habit. It's this approach, whether by luck or judgement, that the NHS appears to have taken by splitting its anti-smoking funding between a number of bodies with differing approaches to the problem.

So what does this tell us about how we should approach more conventional brand problems where audiences are hopefully less predisposed to disengagement? My view is that there are many parallels - sure you may not feel as strongly about a stick of deodorant as you do about cigarettes, but in our busy lives we still look for excuses to edit messages out of our consciousness. Rather than one joined up campaign try and hit people with as many different messages, via different channels and at different time as possible.

It'll lead to slightly uncomfortable agency review meetings where the wall of past and present work might end up looking like a dog's dinner, and our chums at Millward Brown might also report declines in (prompted) ad awareness, but if you want get more people to buy your argument more of the same rarely works as well as more of something else.